Irish agritech player MagGrow raises €3m

MagGrow is helping to solve global issues in the spraying of pesticides on crops.

Dublin agritech start-up MagGrow has raised €3m in a funding round from existing and new investors.

The round will finance MagGrow’s efforts to accelerate growth in target markets. It will also be allocated to several R&D initiatives, both internally and with third-party research partners, to validate the science behind MagGrow’s technology.

The company has focused on working with academic institutions such as Wageningen University, Harper Adams and, most recently, Trinity College Dublin.

It has also launched its own crop science centre at Farm491, where its latest products are tested and released.

Planting seeds

“To date, the company has raised in excess of €10m to fund the development of its current product portfolio and successfully launch in a number of key markets,” explained Gary Wickham, MagGrow’s CEO.

“This latest investment will allow us to support our customers’ increasing requirements, accelerate our sales growth and ensure we continue to invest in the development of the underlying technology, which has been a core strength of this business since the start.”

MagGrow has developed and commercialised a patented, proprietary technology for droplet formation that yields superior drift reduction of more than 70pc and spray coverage performance of up to 40pc compared to conventional spraying for customers.

Its product also enables significant reduction in water usage by up to 50pc, as well as extended spray windows and reductions in labour. The MagGrow system has no moving parts, is easy to install and maintain, and can be fitted to a new or existing crop sprayer.

“The board and investors are excited by the commercial success of core products launched for the pesticide spraying market in 2018,” said Frank van Bezooijen, a director and investor in MagGrow. “The feedback from customers and channel partners has been overwhelmingly positive, with customer testimonials in particular giving us huge confidence in the potential global demand for our proprietary crop spraying technology.

“We look forward to the achievement of further commercial and scientific milestones in 2019.”